Report: Systems in Arizona, other states compromised by Russian hack

By KTAR.com | February 27, 2018 at 4:42 pmUPDATED: February 27, 2018 at 5:11 pm

(Public Domain Photo)

PHOENIX — Systems in Arizona and at least six other states were reportedly compromised by a Russian hack last year but state officials were not informed.

NBC News reported Tuesday that the hack affected either state websites or voter registrations. It did not specify what exactly was affected in Arizona.

The report said officials in all seven states were informed their systems were targeted, but not that they had been compromised.

A spokesman for Secretary of State Michele Reagan, Darron Moffatt, said Reagan’s office had not been told “any Arizona voting system has been compromised, nor do we have any reason to believe any votes were manipulated or changed.

Moffatt said Department of Homeland Security officials told the state that the Phoenix Public Library was the only system the hackers scanned.

“This is like a someone peeking in the windows but not getting in,” he said.

All of the federal officials who spoke to NBC News said no votes were changed and no voters were removed from registration rolls.

Arizona officials were informed by FBI officials two years ago that Russian hackers had breached the state’s selection database, but Secretary of State Michele Reagan’s office labeled it “much ado about little or nothing” at the time.

“We were glad to find out that the instances that DHS was reporting was essentially low-level scans of computer systems at local government levels,” Roberts said. “They were not of the Arizona state registration database.”

“So essentially there was much ado about little or nothing, but we were relieved to hear that it was limited to simple, low-level scanning of securities,” he added.

The Arizona hack was initiated after an employee accidentally downloaded a virus. Roberts said the system was taken offline to review its integrity.